HB5861, titled the Legacy Act of 2025, would direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to seek an agreement with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to study whether the federal government should create a national, confidential, secure system for storing and retrieving “last wish documents.” The study would examine a system that could hold these documents at no cost to individuals and allow retrieval by an authorized agent.
The bill defines “last wish documents” broadly to include advance directives, organ donor registrations, healthcare or medical proxies, powers of attorney, and living wills. It also requires the National Academies to report back to HHS and Congress on the study’s status within two years of enactment and on the final results within four years. The measure is a study-and-report bill only; it does not itself create the storage system or change existing end-of-life paperwork requirements.
Impact
If enacted, the bill would not immediately alter substantive state or federal law governing advance directives, organ donation forms, powers of attorney, or living wills. Instead, it would initiate a federal study through the National Academies on the feasibility, design, and maintenance of a national repository for these documents, potentially informing future legislation or administrative action. The main affected parties would be individuals who use end-of-life planning documents, healthcare providers, legal representatives, organ donation systems, and agencies or organizations that might later be involved in document storage or retrieval.
Sentiment
Based on the bill text and the absence of recorded committee debate or votes, the overall sentiment appears neutral to supportive in concept. The proposal is framed as a planning and research measure intended to improve access to important personal documents and reduce uncertainty for families and authorized agents. Because it is only a study bill, it is less likely to draw strong partisan opposition at this stage, though any future implementation could raise broader policy concerns.
Contention
No specific points of contention are documented in the available materials. Potential areas of debate, if the concept advances, would likely include privacy and cybersecurity protections, who would control access to the repository, whether participation should be voluntary, how costs and administration would be handled, and whether a federal system would duplicate or interfere with existing state-based advance directive and estate-planning processes. At present, however, the bill has only been referred to committee and no recorded votes or hearings are provided.